Amity's Ethereals :: Elena Alder
by Elixean
Summary: A new girl moves to Amity Park from Caiden High, a secret private High School. She's fairly normal, but things start happening she hasn't seen before, and then suddenly she finds something about herself that she fears could be dangerous to new friends...


**Amity's Ethereals**

Elena stared out the window, her soft blue eyes flickering as she tried to take in all the scenery on the side of the highway. Her cheek was pressed against the window, making a stream of fog on the glass. It was fall, a week before her new school went into session, and the bright yellow Chevy Camaro almost blended with the trees on either side of them. Elena hadn't wanted to move from her old home, but it wasn't like she had a choice. Her father had gotten a promotion, but the job required that they move into some backwater town called Amity Park, and as a result she and her mother had to move. Her mother didn't mind, because she worked at home, but Elena had friends.

Elena leaned back in her seat, the right side of the backseat, and she pulled out her iPhone, gazing hopefully at the screen, hoping to see a missed call, but the screen simply showed her background, which was a picture of a wolf spirit that she had drawn herself, uploaded to the computer, then downloaded to her phone. She smiled. Her best friend, Drake, had gotten her hooked on the supernatural, and, being a lover of wolves, she naturally thought of wolf spirits. So she'd spent some time drawing it, and it looked pretty good.

From what she had gathered, Elena knew that this place was kind of dull. Okay, well, mostly. The only unusual things were that there was a ghost boy who lived here, several incidents of ghost attacks, and a weirdo family called the Fentons who hunted those ghosts. But that was about all there was. The Amity Park sports teams, called the Ravens, usually got beat in every sport, and there was a clique of jocks. Bullies. All brawn, no brain. It hadn't been that bad at Elena's school. Oh, no, it had been much worse.

Elena went to a private school before, for _gifted_ students, but really it was just a prison for kids who were different in any way. Bullies were there, the bullied were there, the rich were there, and the poor as well. Of course there were freaks, because there's a group of them in every school. Elena had just been one of those unlucky kids who couldn't get into a normal school because they all filled up before she got there. And, naturally, her school, Caiden High School, was the only one left open, because nobody wanted to end up there. Elena was happy to leave it behind, but she'd made a lot of good friends.

Her mother, Delilah Alder, looked back from the passenger's seat. "Hey, darling," she said in her sing-song voice, "Only a mile to go. You doing alright back there?"

Elena frowned, catching her mother's eye. "Fine," she answered curtly, though she had to clutch her stomach to keep from gagging. She always got sick in cars. Never anything else but cars. She could hang-glide and skydive and parasail, but the car was something she, for whatever reason, couldn't handle. At first it had began as nausea, but then it got worse and worse. When she rode in a car nowadays it was like shoving Ipecac Syrup down her throat. She wore little bracelets that pushed on pressure points to make her less sick, and she ate several motion sickness pills, but none did that much.

Her mother gave her a soft look of sympathy and turned back to the road again.

Elena looked at the head of the seat, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Like everything else, it didn't help, but it made Elena go into a half-sleep mode, where she knew she was sick but she couldn't feel anything. However, it was hard to keep that way, because a single twitch of her finger or blink of her eyes made her alert again.

Her father's voice jerked her out of her trance. "Elena, the school's orientation is tomorrow evening, would you like to go?"

Of course Elena wanted to say no, but that was only because she wasn't feeling well. She knew she'd want to go tomorrow. "Sounds great," she answered, "but they really have orientation in the tenth grade here?"

"It's called a Sophomore," her mother pointed out, "and yes, they do."

"Heaven knows why," her father, Roger Alder, muttered.

The car fell into silence, and before Elena knew what happened her father pulled into a garage. He looked back at her sympathetically. "Go on to your room, hun. We had it set up before we arrived."

"The entire house is set up even. If you're hungry—"

Elena opened the door quickly and hopped out, ignoring her mother's parting statement. _Food? While my stomach is doing orbits around my heart? No thanks._

She glanced around, half impressed. It really was a nice and big house, with mostly hardwood and tile floors. It was a basic brown interior, nothing too interesting. With that, Elena continued towards the stairs that lead down. Her living space was downstairs, and it consisted of the entire basement, a laundry room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a miniature kitchen. Her folks weren't exactly rich, but they had a fair amount of money to spare. Mostly they spent it on her.

Elena stumbled into her bedroom, which was set up almost exactly like her old bedroom had been. LCD Flat-screen TV across from her bed, mini-fridge by her bed. Perfect. She flung herself onto her bed, and without another thought she fell into a deep sleep.

When Elena woke, she was tucked beneath the covers, which were black and white polka dots, and the clock read eight forty-three in the morning. Elena groaned and rose to her feet. She hated waking up past eight, it always made her groggy. However, the coffee-maker was set up in her kitchen, and she knew that an iced latte and a toaster strudel would wake her up.

While she set up her breakfast, she headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day, and for tonight's orientation at Casper High. She stared into the mirror at her jet black hair, which was very short and styled in a long pixie cut. Elena never had to do much with her hair to make it look good, seeing as it was so short. And that was her style. She stared into the mirror at her nearly flawless skin, pleased that her face was smooth as ever. She was very serious about her complexion, and she washed her face twice a day with several different cleansers, and at night she put on cream to replenish her skin and prevent wrinkles and dark circles under her eyes.

Her skin was a dark tan color, very soft, and her lips were a light red-brown. She was, overall, a very beautiful person. And she had been one of the most popular girls at Caiden, but that was only because boys fell for her all over the place, and boys made up over half of Caiden. Not only that, but Elena was good at nearly everything. Singing, writing, drawing, acting, athletics, and even keeping up with what was popular. Elena was the one girl who everyone thought really knew everything. But, of course, that was Caiden. This was Casper High in Amity Park. And these people didn't have differences. They were all the same.


End file.
